We live in a time of empty realities. Many of us feel like a modern-day remnant, just left out. The Babylonians once took the useful, the scholars, the priests, the craftsmen and the smiths the best who can contribute to the economic powers are chosen and the unskilled and the ordinary just live to survive, Many feel discarded by technology or shifting economies. We are told our value lies in our utility, our skills, or our bank accounts.
If we listen to Christ today,
are we among who hear his voice as ‘Blessed are you!’ the very first Gospel
moment begins with the greeting of the angel to Mary ‘Blessed are you,’ Jesus in
his first sermon at Nazareth announced the time of God’s blessedness. Jesus looks
at the very people the world ignores - the hungry, the weeping, the merciful and
says, ‘Blessed are you.’
Using passage from Isaiah 61 he
opened the kingdom first to the poor. “The Lord has anointed me to preach good
news to the poor...” (Is 61:1) “Blessed are the poor theirs is the kingdom of
God.” The anointing to preach good news is “...to comfort all who mourn ... to
give them a garland instead of ashes.” (Is 61:2-3) “Blessed are those who mourn,
they will be comforted.” Isiah cried out calling all to the richness of God’s
grace “…, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters... why spend money for that
which is not bread?” (Is 55:1-2) “Blessed are those who hunger.. they shall be
satisfied.” In the ancient world, inheriting the land was for the strong and
the military conquerors. Prophetic promise is that the land (and the world)
ultimately belongs to the non-violent, not the conquerors. Zephaniah focuses on the remnant who were
meek and useless. “But I will leave within you the meek and humble, who trust
in the name of the Lord... They will eat and lie down and no one will make them
afraid.” (Zephaniah 3:12-13) Psalm 37:11 is the foundation for the Beatitude “Blessed
are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
To ‘see God’ was the ultimate
goal of the pilgrims. They would sing on the way: “Who may ascend the mountain
of the Lord? ... The one who has clean hands and a pure heart... They will
receive blessing from the Lord.” (Psalm 24:3-5) “Blessed are the pure hearted
for they shall see God.” From many passages we know that the prophets were
obsessed with the idea that God prefers mercy over sacrifice. “For I desire
mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”
(Hosea 6:6) To be merciful is to reflect the very character of God’s steadfast
love. Peace in the prophetic sense isn’t just the absence of war; it is the
presence of integrity. “The righteous who walks in his integrity - blessed are
his children after him!” Proverbs 20:7 (Micah 4:3 / Isaiah 2:4). Peace descends
not only on them, but also upon their children. In the Roman world, the Emperor
was the ‘Son of God’ because he brought peace through war conquest. By calling
peacemakers ‘sons of God,’ Jesus gives them a divine title. Jesus claims that
those who bring peace through reconciliation are the true children of God.
The Beatitudes are real when we
desire and actualize God’s will in our lives. This blessedness isn’t a promise
of future riches; it’s an invitation to realize that God’s favor is currently
resting on the very people society ignores. For generations, many considered
prophetic hope as a pie in the sky comfort, something that may happen in the
afterlife. But in the person of Jesus, ‘it has come already.’ The healing of
the broken-hearted is a current event. We no longer look past our tears toward
a far distant shore; instead, we look into the face of the One who stands among
us.
Jesus does not just comfort and
heal those who walk in the valley of death; He identifies the Kingdom with
them. Blessedness of the kingdom is with them and within them. The experience
of the kingdom is also personified in Jesus. He is the living fulfillment of
the promises He preached, being in our midst to offer Himself as the answer to
our deepest needs, “I am the bread, I will give you rest, why are you afraid,
do not weep, and finally abide with me….”
Each promise (comfort, mercy,
the land) is coupled with a clear emptiness (mourning, hunger, or poverty).
This is a call for the mutual building of the Kingdom, a participation in God’s
work. We extend our hands to the poor, share our bread to the hungry, comfort
those who mourn, stand with those hunger for justice, make efforts for peace-making,
… Just as Isaiah says the comforted mourners will in turn become ‘Oaks of
Righteousness’ who rebuild the ruins, the experience of the Beatitudes call a
people to move from being the recipients of the promise to the agents of it.
However, in our world today,
many face a new deportation, forced to move away from their homelands. Even the
‘skilled’ who survived the early wave of change now ‘hunger and thirst for
justice’ as job security vanishes. We are a world of people living in a ‘nowhere
land’ of digital gig work and agricultural decline. There is a powerful system
that values them only for their immediate utility. Here the useless and the
humble and meek never own the land. They are moved to the margins with beautiful
policies of minimum wages. We are met with empty realities, and we carry it
home without being satisfied.
If the agricultural sector fails
and technology leaves us empty, gathering together as the people of God, our
communities and simple social structures need to reflect the reality of the
beatitudes where ‘righteousness and peace kiss each other’ (Psalm 85:10). Our
current empty realities may then be transformed into a poverty of spirit
required for the Kingdom to break through.
No comments:
Post a Comment